Napa Valley’s V. Sattui Winery has long boasted a substantial cheese counter. Yet, despite living nearby, I almost never shopped there. Driving past it, I channeled Yogi Berra. (“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”) Sattui’s St. Helena tasting room is one of the most visited in the valley, its parking lot perpetually filled with tour buses and its grounds thronged with picnickers. Navigating that scene for a pound of cheese was something I rarely had the patience for. But boy, have I had an attitude adjustment. After an extensive remodel, the tasting room looks like a Ralph Lauren store and the vast cheese counter—now in the hands of one of the nation’s most experienced mongers—repays braving the hordes.
Read moreDecoding Greek Yogurt
Photo: Eva Kolenko
For all the hype around plant-based “dairy,” Americans have not abandoned real milk yet. True, we’re not drinking as much milk as we used to, but sales of cultured dairy products are soaring. You might think “cultured dairy products” includes cheese, but it’s industry terminology for the fermented dairy foods in your supermarket’s refrigerated reach-ins, like cottage cheese, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, sour cream and cream cheese. In that group, cottage cheese is the breakout star—thank you, TikTok—but yogurt (including yogurt drinks) is a phenom, too, approaching $12 billion in annual sales in the U.S. Astonishing, no? Greek-style yogurt accounts for more than half of that.
Read moreFive Summer Salads that Upstage the Ribs
Most Fourth of July menus are all about the meat. But in my view, it’s not a meal without salad, preferably plural. I’ve gathered five summer favorites—most of them portable and all of them likely to upstage the ribs.
Read moreDips Ahoy!
How many dip recipes does a girl really need? Whatever the number, I’m not there yet. Early summer is a vegetable-paloooza around here, with cucumbers, radishes, sugar snap peas, beets, cauliflower, sprouting broccoli and new potatoes sending me into my dip archives, where I quickly found seven favorites to share. I love all of these dips so much. How to choose? Fortunately, you have the whole summer to work your way through them. Chill some rosé, slice a baguette and let the dipping begin.
Read morePay More, Get More?
My husband and I are planning a trip to South Korea, so we were watching Korean food videos on YouTube one recent evening. In one travel vlog, a young American couple is checking out a popular fast-food chain called No Brand Burger (definitely not on our itinerary). The official motto of No Brand Burger is refreshingly un-American: “Why pay more? It’s good enough.” The frankness made us laugh, but at a cheese tasting the day before, a guest had basically asked me the same question. How much do you have to spend to get good cheese, he wanted to know, and at what point are you spending more but not getting more quality?
Read moreThis Cheese + That Beer
Time for lunch: Ciel de Chèvre, caramelized onions and a Belgian saison
People often ask me when I’m going to run out of cheeses to write about. Not gonna happen. Every time I’m at a well-run counter, I find a cheese I’ve never seen. And that’s the one I want. I know it’s tempting to stick with what you like, but if you take the occasional risk on a cheese you don’t know, you’ll become a better taster. That’s how I discovered this crazy-good washed-rind cheese, which is now a must for my upcoming “Cheese Meets Beer” class. I’ve experienced a lot of memorable matchups in my life, but this meaty cheese with Saison Dupont was Hall of Fame great.
Read moreCheesy Pop Quiz
It felt like a pop quiz that I should ace. “What’s the difference between cottage cheese and ricotta?” a reader asked recently. Anyone can tell them apart in a tasting (right?), but what makes them different is harder to say. The method for cottage cheese is largely, but not entirely, standardized; big producers often take shortcuts. Creameries make ricotta in multiple ways, too. Let’s take a deeper dive into these two fresh cheeses so you know whether they’re interchangeable in recipes and what you can expect when you open that tub.
Read moreWhat’s Better than Great?
Oakland’s Market Hall Foods has been a destination for food lovers since opening in 1987. Originally named The Pasta Shop, it has endeared itself to its affluent neighborhood by supplying top-of-the-line pasta, olive oils, vinegars, prepared foods and—most notably for me—cheese. Under the guidance of cheesemonger Juliana Uruburu, who was 18 when she started working there, Market Hall Foods has become one of the nation’s most influential cheese merchants.
Read moreCave Dweller
Guiding cheese from birth to maturity is a lot like parenting, albeit with less at stake. There’s no school for it, you learn on the job and the desired outcome is not guaranteed. Affinage, as the French call it, is all about keeping your precious charges on track, but every cheese—like every child—needs its own sort of nurturing.
Read moreNext-Level Chopped Salad
I did not know that chopped salad had a celebrity pedigree, but AI just informed me. I went searching for some history on the dish, which I associate with red-sauce restaurants, and learned that it likely originated in Beverly Hills in the 1950s. Chopped salads with chickpeas, salame and mozzarella were a favorite with tony Angelenos, fancied by starlets like Natalie Wood and ladies-who-lunch like Nancy Reagan. Seven decades later, they’re still popular. They’re colorful, crunchy and amenable to improv. Include what you like; omit what you don’t.
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